They'll have to make the best of things, It's an uphill climb

No Thursday night race report for last Thurs. Loren and I had tickets for the Giants/Phillies game so no racing for me. I checked the overall standings for the series and I have a thin lead for my age group. 3 weeks to go! It's been a fun series.

This weekend, we went on our first backpacking adventure since moving. This would be Bea's, our dog, first backpacking trip. We've gone car camping and hiking with her but this was new.
Friday afternoon, we headed up to the Snow Mountain area of Medocino National Forest for the weekend. We started out with some less than wonderful google map directions to get to the ranger station for a more detailed map. We hit the trail head at 4:30, later than expected.
Friday evening was our day of dumb. Nothing terrible happened, things just didn't go as planned. We hiked a bit further than expected up a really really steep trail with lots of switch backs. Bea was game. The ranger we spoke to hadn't really had a trail report for where we were going for about a month. There was less water than expected. Less being almost none. We took a trail in a different direction than our overall plan to get water. We still had about a liter, but for 2 people and a dog. more would have been better.
We found a very nice camping area at another trail head. It was clear no one had been here for months. Apparently the road leading up to this trail head isn't passable, leaving it unused. It's really too bad, it's an awesome camping area. We followed the map to where a spring should have been. It was a bit of a hunt. Then, there in a field, was a bathtub. No really. LIke an old clawfoot tub someone dragged up there. There was a hose coming out of it but no water. I guess in the spring, when the snow is melting of the mountain, there is a lot of water. For now, there was a trickle running down hill. It wasn't great, but it was enough for the night.
While it was clear no one had been up here in a while, a ranger did stop to talk to us as we were getting ready to hike in. He told us to be on the look out for growers (people go up into the forrest to grow weed). He said they wouldn't look like hikers, they would usually be alone and not carrying anything. I find it hard to believe people would hump all the way out there empty handed but I guess they have some nice set ups deep in the woods. I can understand why people would grow up there, everything grows up there. During our conversation, he said he didn't mind the growing so much as the pesticides which were killing other plants and trees and starting to kill the wild life. I said they could really use the organic label as a marketing tool if they stopped using pesticides. He chuckled, shook his head and said "yea, I really can't say anything about that".
By the time we got camp set up and ate, we were in the dark and pretty pooped. Even though Bea had been camping once before, she got a little freaked out if one of us went off to do some sorta chore that require breaking the pack up. For the first night and most the next day, we did everything together which could get to be a pain.
Once in the tent, we came up with a plan for the next day. We knew there was water where we were, but it sucked. We would hit the next trail split, and decide if we should ditch our packs, day hike for a while, then hike out or bring our packs and find a nice camping area along the trail. We ended up with option 2.
The trail we were on was 2 miles long then would split into a few different trails. At the juncture, there was an awesome spring. We refilled all our bottles, ditched our big packs, packed up a day pack, and went for a few more miles up the trail.
It was beautiful, lots of wild flowers and huge trees, old burnt out trees from a 1987 fire. It was getting warm and we were at about 6500'.
As the day went on, it was clear Bea was hot. She started running from shady patch to shady patch, sitting down every once in a while. We'd let her sit in a shaded area for a while then move on. This was a lot for her.
We got back to the site where we dropped our stuff, set up the tent, which bea could not wait to get in, and spend the afternoon lounging about, playing cards, snacking. The dog pretty much slept.
After a few hours, we went to scout a better campsite for the night.
In the back country, there really aren't campgrounds. Where we were for the afternoon was clearly a set camp, but other areas campers aren't suppose leave fire rings or make it seem like people have been there. But they do, which is ok by me, it makes it easier when the next person shows up as long as the area isn't trashed. At this point, we hadn't seen another person since we got on the trail.
We found an awesome spot. Tucked in behind some big trees off the trail, it had a fire ring, a cozy little spot shaded by some trees for our tent, and an AMAZING view.

Before we could even set up the tent, Bea wanted to be in it. She was so tired she was giving up on caring if one of us went off.
I decided to go fetch water as Loren finished up setting up camp, this way it would be done and we wouldn't have to back track on the way out the next day.
I'm walking down to the creak having a hippie moment in nature, enjoying the few minutes alone, the quiet, thinking about how I haven't seen anyone else.
And then
I see someone else.
A few someones actually, a youngish man and woman and their dog. They're right by the trail junction where the water is. I know just by looking at them they're lost. They're both in shorts, t-shirts, and sneakers.
I had looked at the map pretty closely and several times, I knew where all the trails in the area were. Loren and I had been hanging out in the same area for hours, we would have seen them had they come this way. There was another trail head much further north. I quickly figured that's where they came from. They were WAY off from where they wanted to be.
This isn't like a national park where rangers are patrolling the trails. National forests are more like, ok, here's a trail, here's a mark on a map where there's water, there are some established campground out there but you're not going to find much. HAVE FUN! And it is fun, until you're lost and have no idea where you should be going and it's 6:30PM. This can and does happen as demonstrated by the couple I just ran into.
We talked for a few minutes to try and determine where they were and where they went wrong, but they didn't have a map. I brought them back to our camp. Loren and Bea were both surprised to see other people. Bea was very surprised and not too happy to see another dog.
We figured out where they missed their turn around point, which was several miles away. Which was several miles away from the trail head where they parked. I gave them our map of the area, as we would be hiking out the way we came in in the morning and we were pretty familiar with where we were going. There was only 1 turn off to our trail and we had already passed it 3 times. We also gave them a headlamp since they had a dying flashlight, some food, and the space blanket out of our first aid kit. They had about 7 miles of hiking to go and about 2.5 hours of day light at most. I think they'd make it out, it just wasn't going to be a whole lotta fun.
My public service announcement for the day: if you go out hiking someplace unfamiliar, bring a map, bring water, bring snacks, something warms, a light, and let someone know where you're going and when you expect to be back. It really doesn't take much to go from, oh lovely walk in the woods, to oh crap I'm stuck and drinking my own pee.
After our new friends were on our way, we settled in for the night, falling asleep before it was even totally dark. I wanted to get up early and head out before the heat of the day.
We all fell right to sleep. Some point during the night, I woke up to coyotes singing somewhere out in the woods. Such a cool cool sound.
The next morning we were on the trail by 7:20AM. It was a lovely morning and the hike out was mostly downhill. I hadn't realized just how steep those switchbacks were until we went down them.
Half way down the trail, we had our 2nd human interaction. We ran into a young guy with a big pack, he was headed out for 5-6 days. We gave him the lowdown on the water situation and good camping areas and we were all on our way.
Bea got some of her energy back for the hike out. There were squirrels and chippies all over making her totally crazy.
Once we hit our car though, she was in the back seat and sound asleep. She slept the whole way home. This trip took a lot out of her! I think it'll be a couple of days before she's back up to her normal energy levels.
On our way out, we stopped by the ranger station to tell them about the folks we saw, just it case. I didn't think to give them my # so we'd know if they got out. The ranger thanked us and said, well, this is more information than we usually have. Last time someone got lost out there they just sat on a rock until we found them. Im pretty sure they made it out ok.

I was due to do a speed workout today. But ya know what? My ass is sore and my calves are killing me which I'm a little surprised by. I'll either do a short recovery run or take the day off. Taking the day off is really winning in my head at the moment.

Winter Wonderland

In late 2003, Loren and I planned on hiking Mt Marcy, the high point of NY. This trip never happened thanks to an insane blizzard. On the high point list, she had already done NY and I was missing it. Somewhere in my mind was the thought that I wanted to do it as a winter hike. Partially because I didn't get to do it when we first planned on it and partially because there are other mountains that are high points that require winter like skills, such as Mt Rainer, Mt Hood, and of course, Denali.
Mt Mansfield, the high point of VT isn't far from Marcy, so we decided on a double header.
Luckily with our schedules right now we can be flexible, which is a very good thing. We had planned on going the day after Thanksgiving. After keeping a close eye on the summit forcasts, we decided that 90 mile an hour winds with windchill of -20 just wasn't an option so we postponed the trip. For the next week, we watched and watched and watched until we found a window. Thurs and Fri we'd have air temps in the low teens with a wind chill of about 0 or maybe -2. PERFECT! (did I just say that?)
We drove up to Burlington on Wed. in the pouring rain. The entire way. We stayed with an old Esalen pal of mine for the night.
Thurs. morning, we headed to Stowe for the hike up Mansfield. There's a big difference between East coast and Western mountains. Western mountains are huge. They're high but generally have nice winding trails. East coast mountains are not very high (Mansfield tops out at 4393', Marcy 5244') but they are steep and rocky. The hike to the summit of Mansfield gains 2800' in 2.3 miles. It took us 6 hours to get up and back down, so do the math: less than a mile an hour.
What's also nice about East coast mountains are east coasters are crazy. About 1.8 miles up there trail (the Long Trail for those interested in the route), there's a lodge. And not a small one. 30 people could easily sleep in the bunkbed like platforms. I know in the summer it's gets a lot of use, but it does not sit empty in the winter either. People hike up the mountain all winter long, some of them then skiing back down the slopes of Stowe. We took off our spikes on the big porch (yup, spikes. The trail was pretty much a frozen stream bed) and sat inside for some tea and a snack before the last push up.
At the lodge, the trail splits giving one the option to stay in the nice warm protection of the trees for the last half mile. This is an option we took since it was very windy out of the tree line. Of course, there is a trade off for this. The trail, aptly called Profanity Trail, goes straight up and at times requires use of both hands and (spiked) feet.

Coming down it is no picnic either. I think we both fell at least twice.
Once above tree line, the weather changed dramatically. No more trees to protect us from the -0 windchill. This is not something you want to linger in, so we scurried to the summit, snapped some photos and got the hell outa there.


Once we hiked out and back to the car, we stopped at the Ben and Jerry's factory to refuel. Yes, it's winter and below freezing, but come on, how can I say no to ice cream?
Then on to NY. It was about a 3 hour drive and we arrived at the Adirondak Loj at about 8:30 pm. The loj has been there since 1890 (see? East coasters-CRAZY) and has a sign that says something like "hospitality since 1882". For the winter they keep half the camp ground open. Loren and I found a lovely lean to, pitched the tent inside and crawled into our 0 degree sleeping bags. It was about 25 degrees out so we were totally toasty.
We were the only ones camping.
The alarm went off at 5am. We were up, did camp chores and hit the trail head, with headlamps on, at 6:30.
The Van Hoevenberg trail to the summit is 14.8 miles round trip and gains 3200'. There was already snow on the ground and it fell lightly all day. After about 2.5 hours, we stopped for our first break. Right after, we had a tricky stream crossing. Luckily, we both made it with out soaking ourselves. If we had, it would have been grounds to turn around. No one wants to risk what would be 6 more hours with a frozen foot. Shortly after the stream, we put the spikes on.
We saw no one else on our way to the summit. We were following foot steps of someone, I assume a guy from the size of the foot prints, all the way up to the summit. He was alone and I thought about when he was there and what his accent was like. I also thought about the young man who has gone (what seems to be intentionally) missing the week before. While search parties were sent out searching, the only sign of him to turn up was his jacket at the Marcy Dam campground , 2 miles up the trail.
As we got to the sign indicating the summit was .6 miles away, we stepped out of the trees. Like in VT, the wind picked up and every thing was frozen and covered in rime ice. The trail blazed in yellow blocks of paint on this point of the trail, were almost impossible to find as most of the rocks they were painted on were covered in snow and ice. We relied on the large stone cairns hikers build for each other so the trail can be found. Those too, were covered in ice and snow but still visible.
It was a very steep climb up what was pretty much a sheet of ice.

Here's Loren on the last stretch. Snow shoes are required if there is more than 8' of snow. Since we didn't know what trail conditions were like that high up, we both had to carry our snow shoes which never left our packs. A Cairn is off to her left.
It didn't feel as cold on top of Marcy, but we didn't linger. Getting to the top is only half way. We still had 7.4 miles to negotiate back down.

I did climb on top of this rock slab to try and find the actual USGA marker but with no luck, it's under snow.
We hustled back down the mountain faster than we went up, going ass over tea kettle once or twice.
As we got about 4 miles down the trail, I was getting pretty tired. My feet hurt from walking on rocks for 2 days, in truth (yes Loren, I believe you were right) I may have been bonking a little. We stopped at Marcy Dam sat in a lean to and had a snack. I felt so much better. We covered the last 2.1 miles in about an hour. Over all, it took us 9 hours.
Once we returned to the trail head, wet shoes/socks and gaters were removed and we packed up all our gear.
2 more high points for me, brining my total to 26. More than half way there!
Just a few things about this sort of hiking:
1. yes it's cold, but your body will generate a lot of heat doing this sorta thing.
2. yes, it can be dangerous. Very. You slip and break your leg out there, you can be in serious trouble.
3. Wanna try it? Take a winter camping/hiking class or pal up to someone with some experience. Try something easy at first.
4. Invest in good equipment. It could, with out exaggeration, save your life.
5. Don't do anything stupid!
More pictures can be seen >here starting with 131.

Deep in the heart of Texas.

Ok, not so much the heart, more like the tip of the ear of Texas. For Loren's birthday, we went to do the high point of Texas, Guadalupe Peak. We've been eying this one for a while. I don't know why, something about it seemed very interesting. It's very remote, one of the remotest National Parks. Guadalupe National Park is desert, with a big mountain. About 300 million years ago, it was under an ocean so the peak itself and El Capitan, a weird odd shape mountain across from the high point were once part of a huge reef. All these millions of years later, it still has an ocean feel to it, even the desert scrub seems like sea weed.
The summers are very very hot and subject to very high winds and thunderstorms roll in quickly. Fall seemed like the perfect time to go. Little did we know it was also when leaf peepers went. Ok, I fully admit as an East Coaster, this idea seemed silly to me. There are a handful of trees out there that turn and while yes, they are beautiful, it's just so...ok, I sound like an East coast snob. I'll just keep it at yes, they're beautiful and pretty cool to see in the desert.
We flew into El Paso on Friday, found the divest Mexican place we could find for lunch (amazing), loaded up on supplies and headed out. We got extremely lucky with the camp site. As I said, I had no idea it would be packed. There is 1 campground in the park (car camping that is, there are several back country camp grounds, but no water anywhere so schlepping in several gallons of water was not in the cards for this trip). Wally, the camp ground host, directed us to the last camp site in the park, a handicap accessible site a mile down the road from the main camp ground. It was nice enough, elevated so someone in a wheel chair could use the site pretty easily. There was one site next to us that was being used by 3 folks from a NM meet up hiking group. The 5 of us swapped stories and shared the picnic table.
Sat. morning we woke to a hard frost on our tent. One of the difficult things about fall/winter camping is the lack of sunlight. It's a lot of time staying warm and time in the tent. We made breakfast and got an early start up the trail. Guadalupe is a 8.4 hike that gains 3000'. We caught a beautiful windless day with lots of people on the trail. It was a truly beautiful day. Photos can be seen here (the last 25 or so). There are other pictures of the trip here.
Later that day, we did the Smith Spring trail as well.
Sunday we drove up to Carlsbad Caverns to see the largest cave in North America. There are trails in the cave that allow you to walk several miles through the cave. It's pretty cool.
We then drove to McKittick Canyon. This is a 6.8 mile hike, we decided to run it. It was a fairly flat though slightly rocky trail. By people's reactions to us, you'd think they never in their lives saw anyone running. The day was beautiful and this is rated "moderate" hike so the trail was packed with people. We had people laugh, call us tough, call us crazy, one guy offer us his water bottle. I really enjoyed seeing people's reactions to something that is so normal for me to be doing.
It was also Loren's birthday. Here are some pictures from the run.



So yes, I have been running! Not too much, mostly with the dog, but I am starting to ramp back up. My body has really needed this cut back. Ha, cut back. Cut back from running. Over the last few months, I've hiked over 100 miles and gone up and down about 40,000'. Even if my running milage is low this year (it will be) that counts for something! I'm looking forward to the winter ramp up and starting to train for Boston.

Leg Stroke

ok, I'm back from maine. While gone, I did a 6 mile run and a 7.3 mile run. I did not do my 14 mile run. I figured the 9.5 mile hike that took 8 hours was enough.

Ok, so not all of it looked like this picture. That's Loren on the Knife's edge. It's pretty much a boulder field with swatches of blue paint so you know where to go and not plummet down 1000' to your death. And there's me doing the butt scoot down the cliff.

Anyway, all my runs felt pretty good in Maine. I came home and ran an easy 6 with striders yesterday with a friend who is rehabbing and her dog.

But now...I want to talk about what we here at Dog Pound labs have been calling the Leg Stroke. It first happened Thurs. night. I woke up with the terrible pain in my inner thigh and down my knee. Like I wanna throw up pain. And it's hit me 4 or 5 times since. Like I can't walk pain. THough running has been fine. I have been icing, stretching, foam rolling, adviling.  I am pretty sure it's from the combo of the hike and being in the car so friggin much. Today I have a 15 mile run with 12 at MP scheduled. I should be out the door already but I did not sleep well. We'll see how this goes. Like I said, no pain running. Tomorrow I'm calling my PT guys. This has me a little bummed out.